L.B.: Muggletonians

Left Behind, pp. 301-302

As Chapter 17 begins, LaHaye and Jenkins seem suddenly to realize that they've scarcely made any headway through the End Times Checklist. Rapture? Check. Antichrist? Check. Woes, seals, trumpets, scrolls, angels, horsemen, witnesses, martyrs, dragons, talking eagles? Nothing yet and we're already 300+ pages in.

So here's where they start making up for lost time, plowing through the Book of Revelation with stretches of pure, unadulterated exposition.

It is still the Longest Day and Rayford still can't sleep, so he turns on his new TV and puts on CNN. Instead of the usual Larry King reruns the not-really-24-hour network shows in the wee hours, he sees a report from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem:

"No one knows the two men," said the CNN reporter on the scene, "who refer to each other as Eli and Moishe. They have stood here before the Wailing Wall since just before dawn, preaching in a style frankly reminiscent of the old American evangelists. Of course the Orthodox Jews here are in an uproar, charging the two with desecrating this holy place by proclaiming that Jesus Christ of the New Testament is the fulfillment of the Torah's prophecy of a messiah.

"Thus far there has been no violence, though tempers are flaring, and authorities keep a watchful eye. Israeli police and military personnel have always been loath to enter this area, leaving religious zealots here to handle their own problems. This is the most explosive situation in the Holy Land since the destruction of the Russian air force, and this newly prosperous nation has been concerned almost primarily with outside threats.

"For CNN, this is Dan Bennett in Jerusalem."

Bennett's reference to "the old American evangelists" is puzzling. It's possible he means old as in old-fashioned, or old-style -- as though these two men were preaching like Billy Sunday. But it seems here more like he's saying "old" in recognition of the fact that all of the American evangelists have disappeared. If that's the case, Bennett is the first person -- apart from those who have watched the ICR video -- to have realized that the disappeared are all either children or born-again RTCs. It's hard to know which is meant here because, of course, neither Bennett nor L&J allows CNN's camera to show us the two men so we don't get to hear them speak firsthand. The rushed exposition of Bennett's report doesn't really require him to be "on the scene" at all (which is, sadly, not an inaccurate portrayal of much of CNN's reporting).

L&J have tried to make Dan Bennett talk like a reporter, and that's how he comes across -- as someone who's trying to talk like a reporter. What we end up with is a mix of reporter-ish phrases ("authorities keep a watchful eye"), slightly altered prophecy-conference jargon ("fulfillment of the Torah's prophecy of a messiah") and gibberish ("almost primarily"). The details of Bennett's report don't ring true either, such as his use of the term "Wailing Wall" instead of Western Wall, and his apparent assumption that everyone knows what that refers to and why it is regarded as holy. His suggestion that military personnel are "loath to enter" the area of the Western Wall is only true if by that he means that most are too busy monitoring the checkpoints they have encircling the site, checkpoints through which every visitor to the wall must pass under the close scrutiny of heavily armed military personnel.

The authors also don't seem to be aware of Jerusalem Syndrome, a form of psychotic religious delusion that afflicts about 100 visitors to that city each year. In this fascinating Journeyman Pictures video on Jerusalem Syndrome, the head of the city's Kfar Shaul Mental Health Center describes some of the many sufferers he has encountered and treated over the years -- dozens of people claiming to be Jesus or the Virgin Mary, and even one Canadian tourist who claimed to be Samson and who tore out the bars of a window to escape his hospital ward. (Note: When treating mental patients who think they're Samson, cut their hair before putting them in the locked ward. And keep them away from stone pillars.*)

The situation Bennett reports on here -- two guys claiming to be Moses and Elijah creating a public spectacle as street preachers -- is actually a fairly routine occurrence in Jerusalem. This would be nothing the Israeli police hadn't seen before, and nothing they wouldn't know how to deal with. Once Eli and Moishe began to incite any kind of disturbance, they would be whisked off to Kfar Shaul. ("Where should I put Moses and Elijah?" "Moseses go in Ward 3 with the Abrahams. You'll have to put Elijah in with the Jesuses, the Prophet Ward is getting crowded.") Eventually they'd be sent back home to Texas or Indiana, where they could get the help and treatment they need.

The last thing that Israeli authorities would do in a situation like this, as tempers and tensions rise, would be to leave the situation to "religious zealots" to deal with. Most people suffering from Jerusalem Syndrome are harmless but some, like Australian tourist Michael Rohan, are not. In 1969, driven by the voices in his head which he believed were divine, Rohan set fire to the al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount, sparking international rioting and chaos. Since then, Israeli officials have been vigilant to ensure that JS-sufferers are not exploited by the many varieties of religious zealots who want to see a repeat of such chaos because they think it would hasten their longed-for End of the World scenarios.

In Left Behind, however, the Israeli police have also read the back of the book jacket, and therefore recognize that they're not dealing with your run-of-the-mill Jerusalem Syndrome cases here, but with the actual Moses and Elijah, which is to say with L&J's version of the "two witnesses" described in Revelation 11.

Even by the standards of Revelation, this is a perplexing passage. Here's the key part:

I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. If anyone tries to harm them, fire comes from their mouths and devours their enemies. This is how anyone who wants to harm them must die. These men have power to shut up the sky so that it will not rain during the time they are prophesying; and they have power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want.

Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them. Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. For three and a half days men from every people, tribe, language and nation will gaze on their bodies and refuse them burial. The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and will celebrate by sending each other gifts, because these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth.

But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, "Come up here." And they went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies looked on.

At that very hour there was a severe earthquake and a tenth of the city collapsed. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

L&J claim to read this passage "literally." Good luck with that. Their "literal" interpretation causes them to regard things like CNN as fulfillments of biblical prophecy. Follow that? The passage says that people from every corner of the earth will see the dead bodies of the two witnesses. Clearly, John is describing satellite television. What else could it possibly mean?

I don't have any idea what to make of Revelation 11. Set aside the opaque symbolism and numerology, I can't even make sense of its verb tenses. I'm OK with that. I'm pretty sure that one can live a full life and be a faithful Christian without knowing what to make of passages like this.

The InterVarsity Press Commentary suggests that the two witnesses represent an aspect of John's own testimony in his apocalypse. Could be, I guess, OK. The commentary also offers a bit of a cautionary tale regarding those, like L&J, who view such passages as transparent and obvious in their meaning:

Who are John's "two witnesses"? Identifications have been varied and sometimes eccentric, ranging from the apostles Peter and Paul martyred in Rome (Munck 1950) to two 17th-century London tailors named John Reeve and Lodowick Muggleton! The latter interpretation created a sect known as the Muggletonians, which lasted for three hundred years.

The Wikipedia entry on the Muggletonians** underscores the commentary's warning, ending with this weirdly poignant sentence:

The last Muggletonian, Mr. Phillip Noakes of Matfield, Kent, died in 1979.

Lest we find ourselves doomed to repeat the sad, lonely fate of poor Mr. Noakes, let's avoid delving much further into the esoteric symbolism of this passage. I should note, however, that L&J's placement of the two witnesses here, in the earliest days of the Tribulation, is regarded by some of their fellow Darbytonians as controversial. We needn't get into the details of this intramural dispute -- that would be too much like walking into a room full of conspiracy theorists arguing over who Jack Ruby was really working for -- but it's worth keeping in mind that such disputes helped to shape the authors' imagined audience for this book. It's not only about reassuring their followers and condemning the pagans and False Christians. It's also about condemning the mid-Trib Rapturists and all the other PMD factions whose tribulation timelines vary from L&J's preferred version.

Want more details on these variations and the ins and outs of these disputes? OK, but be careful -- remember Phillip Noakes. Some of the more splendid timelines I've found online can be viewed here, here, here, here, here and here. The first is the prettiest, but the last one is probably my favorite since it's tied in to specific dates in 2009. L&J have their own version, but it's not online because they want you to buy it. Some of LaHaye's earlier versions can be found here. If you really want to spelunk further into these intramural disputes, try googling "secret rapture," a contentious term used by L&J's opponents (or, perhaps, by their allies, it can be hard to tell).

Finally, you may be wondering why the authors identify these two witnesses as Moses and Elijah when, as we have seen, Rev. 11 never mentions them. In part it's because Moses and Elijah are said not to have died, per se, but to have been taken up to heaven by God. (That reasoning strikes me as unfair to Enoch.) It's also because Moses and Elijah are mentioned by name in the Synoptic Gospels' accounts of Jesus' "transfiguration." How does that story, which is not included in John's Gospel, fit in with this seemingly unrelated story from John's apocalypse? Well, when LaHaye shoved his Scofield Bible into his 86hp, hydraulic-feed Darby-matic wood chipper, a fragment of a page from Rev. 11 landed next to a fragment of a page from Matt. 17, so, clearly, these passages are related.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

* [woody]"We needed the eggs."[/woody] Speaking of chickens and eggs, there's some dispute over whether Jerusalem Syndrome is really something that happens to otherwise healthy people visiting the city, or whether it's more a matter of the Holy City's particular attraction to those who already are afflicted by religious delusions. See also, Graceland.

** The Muggletonians were obsessed with, among other things, denouncing Newtonian cosmology as antibiblical. The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco has a collection of Isaac Frost's Muggletonian astronomical charts which are, in their own way, oddly beautiful (see also here). Compare the craft and care of these lovely prints with the wanton ugliness of contemporary geocentrist Marshall Hall's Web site -- or with what passes for art among PMDs (as in this painting). The modern world is witnessing a lamentable decline in the craft and aesthetics of its religious quack fringe groups. The Shakers produced beautiful furniture. The PMDs produced the World's Worst Books. But at least we still have Howard Finster.

Comments

[bananie]

fred, you always make my friday.
thank you.

[Hysterical Woman]

Reminds me of this rule from the Evil Overlord list:

#109. I will see to it that plucky young lads/lasses in strange clothes and with the accent of an outlander shall REGULARLY climb some monument in the main square of my capital and denounce me, claim to know the secret of my power, rally the masses to rebellion, etc. That way, the citizens will be jaded in case the real thing ever comes along.

In a place like Jerusalem, which has always been crawling with prophets and messiahs, how will you be able to tell the real deal?

[richardmtl]

Oh goodness. I followed the Marshall Hall link.. ouch! I found this gem, though: Click on the "Nasa and the Evolution Circus" link down near the bottom. I love this line:

"Obesity, Madonna, and UFO’s are examples of the boundless Evolution Promoting Circus."

Wow.

[Vyola]

The modern world is witnessing a lamentable decline in the craft and aesthetics of its religious quack fringe groups. The Shakers produced beautiful furniture. The PMDs produced the World's Worst Books.

*sigh*

Nobody takes pride in their workmanship anymore.

Seems that they don't ascribe to the idea that making the mundane beautiful elevates it and promotes the glory of God. It's all part of how they want you to forget that life is for living, not just a placeholder until you cash out all your better-than-thou points. After all, if you try to make life better and more beautiful and more comfortable, you must want to delay or derail the Checklist....

[aunursa]

In part it's because Moses and Elijah are said not to have died, per se, but to have been taken up to heaven by God.

How is Moses' ascension explained in light of Deut 34:5?

[histrogeek]

So I was look at the 2009 apocalypse site and my what a mass of incomprehensibility. I mean who would even think of using the Book of Jonah as citation for the End Times (some kind of affirmative action for the unappreciated prophets?)? Then Vishnu was in there. I can't even begin to guess what drugs were going on there.

[Grumpy]

"This is the most explosive situation in the Holy Land since the destruction of the Russian air force..."

We're comparing two loudmouthed guys to the simultaneous detonation of the entire Russian nuclear arsenal (and Ethiopia's!). Even as a metaphor, it doesn't measure up.

[ohiolibrarian]

In a place like Jerusalem, which has always been crawling with prophets and messiahs, how will you be able to tell the real deal?

Jesus had that same problem ...

[aunursa]

Bennett is the first person -- apart from those who have watched the ICR video -- to have realized that the disappeared are all either children or born-again RTCs.

As someone pointed out on a previous thread, if such disappearances really happened as described, then the immediate global consensus would be that it was the Rapture, and skeptics would be compelled to provide overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

[Jesurgislac]

It would be kind of funny if no one recognises Eli and Moishe ever, at all, but right now someone in Jerusalem is admitting to the police that she could swear that her two missing lampstands walked out into the garden, united themselves with her two olive trees, and then each olive tree/lampstand just walked off, seeming to morph into human form as they did so, and stealing some sacks from her shed on the way.

And, as the police search her house for illegal drugs....

[djmagaro]

"...Woes, seals, trumpets, scrolls, angels, horsemen, witnesses, martyrs, dragons, talking eagles? Nothing yet and we're already 300+ pages in."

That's because L&J had TWELVE MORE BOOKS to inflict upon the world! I mean, if you want to maximize the number of souls you save (and your just profits for saving those souls) you gotta stretch - it - out.

I remember a former student of mine - a Catholic no less - was a big devotee of those books. I have to admit that I got a bit of cruel pleasure in telling him that as far as L&J were concerned, his mackeral-snapping soul was pretty much already pledged to Satan.

[mmack]

Once Eli and Moishe began to incite any kind of disturbance, they would be whisked off to Kfar Shaul. ("Where should I put Moses and Elijah?" "Moseses go in Ward 3 with the Abrahams. You'll have to put Elijah in with the Jesuses, the Prophet Ward is getting crowded.")

All I could think of when I read this is the Monty Python sketch about the Royal Hospital for Overacting:

"This is the Richard III Ward"

"A Horse, A Horse, My Kingdom for a horse!"

Thank you once again Fred for making me laugh while offering up cutting criticism.

[Robb]

[obligatory Harry Potter reference to "Muggles" here]

The fact that the Muggletonians actually died out gives me hope that so many of these other fringe fundamentalists will die off as well. I could almost see KJV onlyists going away in my daughter's lifetime.

[Chris]

But at least we still have Howard Finster.

He died six years ago, but we still have his art, at least.

[Bugmaster]

remember Phillip Noakes

I have this nearly undeniable urge to print out a poster with this slogan, and blend in with some fundamentalist protest and/or march.

As always, Fred doesn't disappoint !

[Andy]

I'm pretty sure that one can live a full life and be a faithful Christian without knowing what to make of passages like this.

Man, I hope you are right. Because if you're not, apparently "The Destruction of the Jews" commences on my mom's birthday in 2009. Won't that be special?

[Erick Oppeen]

And then there's the joke about the visiting doctor going through a Scottish hospital, and visiting a ward. The first patient leaps up and declaims: "Wee, sleekit, cowerin' timorous beastie, och, what a panic's in thy breastie!" The second one joins in with "When chapman billies leave the street, and drouthy neebors neebors meet..." and the third one says "Ye Jacobites by name, lend an ear, lend an ear..." The visiting doctor says to his hosts: "This must be the psychiatric ward." "No," comes back the answer, "this is the Serious Burns Unit."

BTW---did you know that there is a "Jacobite" church? When I found out about that, and that it was "Eastern" (Monophysite), I immediately had visions of chanting Byzantine priests bowing and genuflecting to ikons of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Young Pretender, and the Cardinal King.

[Spalanzani]

Wow...all kinds of weird stuff at the Kircher Society page (the second link in footnote#2, labled as "See also here"). I think the End Times Checklist should be expanded to include such marvels as, say, the fish-powered bicycle-thingy. There's so much beatiful weirdness in the world, but LeHaye and Jenkins seem to be only interested in the ugly kind.

[Bugmaster]

Ok, Fred is right, the modern charts have been whacked with the ugly stick, hard. Does anyone feel like taking a modern chart and re-rendering it in glorious Web 2.0 jelly-luminance ? I'm off to a short vacation now, or I'd do it myself...

[Vermic]

So if I understand Revelation right: the dude who brings peace and unites all the nations of the world is the bad guy. And the two dudes in sackcloth who create plagues and bloodify the seas and incinerate people with mouth-fire? Those would be the good guys. Check.

"This is the most explosive situation in the Holy Land since the destruction of the Russian air force."

I would have thought that that incident would be more commonly remembered as the day Russia tried to, y'know, nuke Israel off the map.

[Jesurgislac]

Erick: did you know that there is a "Jacobite" church?

In Scotland, there's still a Jacobite Party.

[Mau de Katt]

Wow, you learn something new every day... I'd never heard of Jerusalem Syndrome before; although I was aware of people going all nuts in various "holy places," I didn't know it had actually been syndromized.

And Howard Finster, eh? Interesting art. I've always had a bit of a fondness for Heironymous Bosch, though... lol....

[Muse of Ire]

[i]Israeli police and military personnel have always been loath to enter this area, leaving religious zealots here to handle their own problems. [/i]

I've got a feeling that the authors are thinking about the Orthodox in the Mea Shearim stoning people who wear "immodest clothes" or drive on the Sabbath.

[i]The modern world is witnessing a lamentable decline in the craft and aesthetics of its religious quack fringe groups. The Shakers produced beautiful furniture. [/i]

And the Swedenborgians had William Blake.

[Muse of Ire]

Hey, what happened to my tags?

[Dan]

So it's still, what, less than a week after the rapture, the biggest, most traumatic event in human history, and CNN is reporting on two street corner preachers in Jerusalem?

"Thus far there has been no violence. . ." Well, other than all the rioting that's been going on all over the world since The Disappearance. You know - the beatings, lootings, governmental-overthrows by distraught parents, people tired of waiting in long lines at parking garages - that sort of normal stuff.

[Reynard]

Ah, yes; Heironymous Bosch: One part Salvatore Dali, one part Jack Chick...

I mean who would even think of using the Book of Jonah as citation for the End Times

It's not the book of Jonah. It's the book of Johah.

Oh, and Ends with Jesus returning to save the Jews prior to all being killed?

Including Jesus?

[Muse of Ire]

[i] Bennett is the first person -- apart from those who have watched the ICR video -- to have realized that the disappeared are all either children or born-again RTCs.

As someone pointed out on a previous thread, if such disappearances really happened as described, then the immediate global consensus would be that it was the Rapture, and skeptics would be compelled to provide overwhelming evidence to the contrary.[/i]

Yeah, but has anybody in the book said this out loud, in public?

[Vermic]

"His suggestion that military personnel are "loath to enter" the area of the Western Wall is only true if by that he means that most are too busy monitoring the checkpoints they have encircling the site, checkpoints through which every visitor to the wall must pass under the close scrutiny of heavily armed military personnel."

Then again, this is LB Israel, which in L&J's timeline has somehow managed to win peace and brotherhood with all its Middle Eastern neighbors (however improbable that scenario may be). So maybe security in Jerusalem has relaxed somewhat as a result. I'm sure I'm giving L&J way too much credit, though.

Incidentally, I love how CNN says that Israel "has been concerned almost primarily with outside threats" lately -- this being a week after the disappearance of every 10-and-under in the country.

Muse of Ire,

Use < and > instead of [ and ].

[Taco Bell Spokesperson]

[obligatory Harry Potter reference to "Muggles" here]

The fact that the Muggletonians actually died out gives me hope that so many of these other fringe fundamentalists will die off as well. I could almost see KJV onlyists going away in my daughter's lifetime.

An ex-significant other's great grandmother is a KJV-onlyist. When told of it's several flaws, she responded, "Well if it was good enough for the Apostle Paul, it's good enough for me!!"

We never brought it up again.

[cjmr's husband]

Ay Chihuahua!

[Jesurgislac]

Vermic: Incidentally, I love how CNN says that Israel "has been concerned almost primarily with outside threats" lately -- this being a week after the disappearance of every 10-and-under in the country.

Yeah. Wouldn't they first-of-all think kidnapping by Palestinian terrorists? Meanwhile, Palestinians would think mass kidnapping by Israelis. I mean, both sides (the Israelis more than the Palestinians, of course, having more weaponry and less fear of consequences) have attacked the other side's children: the mass disappearances of every child would really bite. I've seen American Jews argue that Palestinians obviously don't love their children and the "solution" is to remove every Palestinian child from their families and rear them in "proper" care: in the post-Rapture world, perhaps the Palestinians think this has happened? (Um, need to check what time of day it would have been....)

[Picky Guy]

Wait wait wait. Moses was ascended? I think that it should definitely be Elijah & Enoch. But wouldn't it be hilarious to try to have L&J explain through CNN who Enoch is?

Deuteronomy 34, people. The bible is quite literal about this. Even in King James. 5"And Moses the servant of the LORD died there in Moab, as the LORD had said. 6 He was buried in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is."

Ok, so we don't know WHO buried him. Given that Moses climbed into the mountains alone. But still.

[aunursa]

Wouldn't they first-of-all think kidnapping by Palestinian terrorists? Meanwhile, Palestinians would think mass kidnapping by Israelis. I mean, both sides (the Israelis more than the Palestinians, of course, having more weaponry and less fear of consequences) have attacked the other side's children: the mass disappearances of every child would really bite.

Only if all of their communications systems were down, any of which would make them aware that every child in the world had disappeared.

[Jeff]

As someone pointed out on a previous thread, if such disappearances really happened as described, then the immediate global consensus would be that it was the Rapture, and skeptics would be compelled to provide overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Someone did indeed make that contention, but it was not compelling.

Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.

Jesus was crucufied in Jerusalem, right? Is that called Sodom or Egypt, figuratively or not, ANYWHERE in the Bible other than this verse? Because this sounds awfully weird to me.

[Jeff]

Jesu, Jesu, Jesu... I mean, both sides (the Israelis more than the Palestinians, of course, having more weaponry and less fear of consequences) have attacked the other side's children.

Do we really need to tally bus bombings vs apartment bombings? Does it really matter?

[aunursa]

Someone did indeed make that contention, but it was not compelling.

It was not compelling because...?

[Jeff]

It was not compelling because...?

Because there were so many better theories (aliens, the Rooskies, Ozymandias) unless you had read the back of the book jacket.

[B-W]

How does that story (the transfiguration), which is not included in John's Gospel, fit in with this seemingly unrelated story from John's apocalypse?

For those who may not know, there is some dispute (even among Christians who accept the Bible as the Word of God and its pages as generally written by the human hands ascribed to them by tradition) as to whether the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation are written by the same John. Some say that they're the same person. Others assume two different Johns (it was a common enough name). I can't speak for L&J. They probably think it's the same John (of course, there is also debate about which John, perhaps yet another, who wrote the Epistles with the name "John" attached to them, which further complicates matters).

Of course, none of this bit of actual scholarship has anything to do with the humorous point Fred was making, but it seemed worth tossing in for discussion.

[Jonathan Edelstein]

"No one knows the two men," said the CNN reporter on the scene, "who refer to each other as Eli and Moishe.

I wonder where Elijah picked up an Ashkenazic accent.

[Andy]

Speaking of the JS syndrome, how about this Miranda guy in New York who leads a cult? He proclaims that he is both Jesus and the Antichrist. I think he needs to refer to some of these timelines. One of him is supposed to come first. Right?

[Dave]

I like saying "The Last Muggletonian." It has quite a melodic sound to it. It could almost be a lost Narnia book.

[Ursula L]

Incidentally, I love how CNN says that Israel "has been concerned almost primarily with outside threats" lately -- this being a week after the disappearance of every 10-and-under in the country

Well, I suppose in L&J land, only RTCs love their kids, and all the low-life heathens are busy looking for alters on which to sacrifice their children to various demons, when not busily having an abortion every other month. So the children under ten disappearing would be no big deal to the non-RTC adults who were left.

[CaptainBooshi]

Wait, I'm confused. Is Moishe another name for Moses? Why didn't L&J just use that name in the book then?

[Sarah Dylan Breuer]

Fred,

I *highly* recommend Bruce Malina's and John Pilch's *A Social Science Commentary on the Book of Revelation*. Very, very illuminating stuff on Revelation in its cultural context, and written in a reasonably accessible way.

[Joe Smith]

"Wait, I'm confused. Is Moishe another name for Moses? Why didn't L&J just use that name in the book then?"

They're in Israel, so they use the Hebrew form of the names.

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Is Moishe another name for Moses? Why didn't L&J just use that name in the book then?

"Moishe" is Moshe (the Hebrew word for Moses, and the one you'll find in the original Torah) pronounced Eastern European style. I'd assume that L&J were trying, in their usual inimitable way, to provide some dialect flavor for their readers. They picked the wrong dialect, of course, but why should that matter?

[Andrew Wade]

In a place like Jerusalem, which has always been crawling with prophets and messiahs, how will you be able to tell the real deal?

Jesus had that same problem ...

That would be where miracles can help lend authenticity. Mind you, in this age of Peter Popoffs they would have to be pretty impressive miracles to stand above the crowd; you don't want something that any street magician can fake. I figure reanimating a (small!) dinosaur would be good, followed up by a trilobite and various other organisms from long-extinct classes and phyla. Video of such events can be faked of course, but the specimens—not so much.

[hf]

Jesus was crucufied in Jerusalem, right? Is that called Sodom or Egypt, figuratively or not, ANYWHERE in the Bible other than this verse? Because this sounds awfully weird to me.

I assume the author meant 'all the forces of the world that oppress the righteous,' since he says flat out that he means it figuratively. Dunno how the details work.